I am no stranger to scammer mortgage brokers and financers. I have filed an ongoing consumer complaints about Household Finance over a period of a few years. So when I got the call from Cornerstone, I was on the defensive.
The first clue came when they telemarketed me even though I am on the DO NOT CALL list and have been since October. After Chris (the loan originator) gave me the company's shtick, I asked him if we had some sort of business relationship that would allow them past the DO NOT CALL laws with me. He acted sheepish and as if he didn't know. Then he asked if I knew the population of Iowa. I told him I didn't and he said around 2 million and that they could not possibly keep track of the DO NOT CALL people. I will be reporting them to the FTC.
Next he goes into how much he can save us in interest for our mortgage. Then I asked several pointed questions and received answers by him; only to find he was simply lying to originate the refinance with me.
Lies told:
1. I told Chris: "If I let you guys check my husband's and my credit we will take a hit on our scores" To which he replied, "We use a special system that makes it not take away any points" I said, "So it's viewed as a soft inquiry instead of a hard inquiry" He didn't understand that, so I had to dummy it down for him, but after that he claimed that was how it would be. That very evening, I checked my husband's and my credit reports via the free credit report we are entitled once a year. Low and behold, they are on both of our credit reports as HARD inquiries which means points taken off of credit scores.
2."Your credit doesn't matter to us. As long as you have steady income, you should be approved" TRUTH: After I cautiously let Chris take all of our info to "run the numbers" I received a call two days later from a Senior Loan Officer named Stan. Among other things, Sam made it very clear to me that our credit DID matter in a big way... More on Stan later.
3. My personal favorite quote from Chris, "We'll never lie to you; we will always tell you the truth no matter what"
4. When I asked if the loan would be sold, I was told "the financers we use rarely sell loans." However in the paperwork they sent me later (see below), it says that there is a 76% to 100% chance that the servicing of the loan will be transferred.in fact for the last 3 years, they have a consistent rate of 100% loan transfers according to their paper.
5. I informed Chris that we had an ARM loan and that it was fixed until August. He gasped and scoffed claiming that he would get us a fixed rate. According the the pre-filled information about the loan that Cornerstone wanted to get with us, this one would have been an ARM as well.
On top of the various lies and misleading statements, the Senior Loan Officer, Sam is offensive. He repeatedly asked me if ALL I do is stay home and not work. After the third time, I told him that I am a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) of 4 sons and a student. That he should probably reword what he was saying and not present it that way to other SAHMs. He then chastised me several times for having better credit than my husband but no income. "It's too bad that you don't have a job so we can use your credit score instead of your husband's." The whole point was the obvious lack of communication between Chris and Sam, since I had told Chris that I was not going to put all my eggs in their basket and didn't really expect a whole lot from them. I finally asked Sam if he expected me to leave my children at home to run out and get a job to make his commission for him.
Later Sam quoted me what our monthly payments would be with a lower interest rate, but we would be borrowing more money than what we owe now at 100% of the home's value, thus losing any equity we have now. With escrow it was going to be around $50 MORE than what we are paying now. (But we would be getting $868 cash out after his $3000 broker fee, $999 processing fee, $250 closing fee, (like that is better than the $3000 equity we have in the home now) After explaining why it was not a good deal to Sam, he implied about me getting a job again. Also that $868 cash out number I wrote was not the number I was told by Sam over the phone. He quoted me $1000 cash out, that number is from the paperwork they later sent me.
I finally told Sam that I did not care for him and had no intentions of doing business with his company and I hung up the phone.
As far as I am concerned, these are predatory lending practices; preying on those who are not knowledgeable in mortgages, equity, and credit. Not to mention that they illegally called me in the first place.
A few days later, I received a loan application in the mail in one envelope and the denial of credit for insufficient property value. Apparently they don't have a reason for "customer hung up on me because she was on to us."
Also, the paperwork had one APR at 6.5 (on the application) but on the Truth-In-Lending statement, it was at 9.611%.
What REALLY doesn't make sense is that We right now owe $53,000 on our home. It is worth at least $56,000. They want us to finance $55,629 with them and then, of course pay them upwards of $4000 and get $868 out for ourselves, bringing the total to $60,000... Assuming the house appraised for that much. And then pay $50 more a month for a house payment. That does not make ANY sense.
Also, according to their Truth-In-Lending Disclosure Statement there MAY be a prepayment penalty and we WILL NOT be entitled to any part of any finance charge.
Although we luckily were not ripped off by this company (aside from the credit hits) I am sure others have been, are being, and will be.
0 comments